 |
 Barbwire Archives |
 |
|
Reno-Sparks-Washoe
Charter cable channels 16 & 216
High-definition channel 80-295 2:00-4:00 p.m. PDT M-F, 21:00-23:00 ZULU/GMT Call 775-882-TALK (882-8255) Streaming at Barbwire.TV, reruns statewide. |
|
What
may well be the first marriage of talk radio, talk TV and webcast webchat
|
Hey buddy, can you spare a dime?
Every so often, if only for a few minutes, you have to walk away from it all.
Barbwire wins second straight Nevada Press Association first-place award
Expanded from the 9-20-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune
The Barbwire TV show will be in re-runs until SNCAT's studio move is completed. You may view them M-F 2-4:00 p.m. PDT on Reno-Sparks-Washoe Charter cable channels 16, 216 and high-def 80-295. Keep an eye on the Barbwire print edition for updates.
Past 12 months
Use the search tool you will find at page right at the above link. It will return the 19 newest. A button for older shows is being installed. You may also search by date — M-F for the past year save holidays.Click here for on-demand re-runs
from the 2009 legislative session(775) 882-8255
[882-TALK]Barbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success
Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008The Barbwire's Greatest Hits
Highlights from radio days
mp3 fileA few days back, I tired of trying to bolster the courage of a beleaguered minority family. They contacted me several months ago about a chain franchise committing major violations of labor and civil rights laws.
New owners took over and proceeded to get rid of all minority employees and replace them with whites. They forced shift managers to make up for cash register shortages out of their own pockets — which is illegal.
They made working conditions intolerable for black and brown workers, causing several to quit. Would you stand for the boss altering your time card and not paying you for all the hours you put in? While some walked away, others took it because they needed the low-wage jobs.
Employees endured racist comments and threatening e-mails from their bosses, who actively work at blackballing them when asked for references by potential new employers.
One fired worker had not received her last paycheck from March and now the Nevada Division of Employment Security (oxymoron) says she owes the state $4,000. She applied for unemployment compensation and was able to feed her children. When she applied for an extension, the employer protested and a hearing officer belatedly found that she never should have qualified in the first place.So it goes under the anti-worker administration of Gov. Jim the Dim.
Ace Reno Gazette-Journal investigative report Frank X. Mullen, Jr., reported on similar cases several weeks ago and asked for other examples. This family of mixed ethnicity is too scared to respond.
I started asking around and found that other major employers are doing the same thing, exploiting the least among us during depressionary times.As the old song goes, hey buddy, can you spare a dime?
I have long been used to community organizations and public officials referring people to me when they have nowhere else to turn. Nevada has a lot of that. The late great Tom Stoneburner got calls from throughout the region because more than eight in 10 Nevada employees have no union representation. His Alliance for Workers Rights became a second full-time job for the Circus Circus security guard. He died at age 60.
When it all gets to be too much, I take comfort in my wilding garden as surcease from the sorrows of the streets.
It's been a summer of promise, a bountiful yellow freestone peach harvest which I picked at the perfect point of balance of sweetness and hardness.
I was honored to be the only non-family member to attend a small birthday party for a great-grandmother's 89th birthday. I brought freshly-picked peaches and was invited to visit again by a four year-old great-granddaughter who apparently likes me. I melted.
I gave the first harvest to my neighbors and had enough left to make peach jam for the first time in three years. I also got red tomatoes in July. Don't know if I've ever accomplished that before. Got peppers, too, but I'm letting the onions go to seed for futures.
My postage-stamp of a wild garden is again overrun with basilico and mint and abuzz with various critters. The void of honeybees has been filled by the usual baby-sized butterflies, fly-flies, wasps, sand bees and occasional yellowjackets. No scary big bumblehornets thus far, but plenty of horny crickets in the past week or two. My patio now morphs into insectian porno every nightfall — ancient analog wifi social networking engineered by Mother Nature. I try not to disturb their night serenades. They sense when I get near the door to listen to them and go quiet for a few beats. I guess I should be embarrassed.
I was sprinkling a few days ago and flushed a huge gray moth which spread its wings to reveal the magnificent pattern of a monarch butterfly. I've never seen anything like it.
Perhaps it was a forlorn soul serving an enlightenment sentence. I recall in Stephen Vincent Benét's The Devil and Daniel Webster that Old Scratch notes how he keeps some of his worst trangressors as moths in a box. So I guess my monarch moth was doing real good by comparison.
It's salutary to seek refreshment by occasionally stepping back for perspective about our respective places in the vastness.
Then, renewed, back to work.
WORK AND PLAY: If you can, attend the peace fair in downtown Reno's Wingfield Park from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. today.
THE ANTIDOTE TO POLITICAL AND CORPORATE PROPAGANDA. I am heading fundraising to get community radio station KJIV back online and ready for an fm launch. Go to ReSurge.TV for more information, to get on my mailing list, contribute or volunteer if you think it important to have at least one non-corporate, non-governmental electronic medium not beholden to corporate contributions or advertising.
Be well. Raise hell.______
Andrew Barbano is a 40-year Nevadan, second vice-president of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, labor/consumer/civil rights advocate and editor of NevadaLabor.com. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. Reruns of his legislative session TV programs are cablecast Monday through Friday, 2-4:00 p.m. on Reno-Sparks-Washoe Charter digital channels 16 and 216 and high-definition channel 80-295, available on demand at Barbwire.TV. Check local listings for other Nevada cable systems. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Daily Sparks Tribune since 1988.
Smoking Guns...
Nevada Press Assn. annual award winners announced 9-19-2009
And they wonder why the newspaper business is dying?
The Dean's List
The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites.
RENO NEWS & REVIEW, 11-9-2006
The 2009 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners
Tony the Tiger & the flaky NFL
Barbwire / 11-30-2008
Deregulation is never having to say you're sorry
Barbwire / 8-3-2008
Nevada: A good place to visit, but do you want to live here?
Barbwire / 6-15-2008
The price of a piece / 6-17-2007
Boxing Pandora /9-23-2007
The Lady in the Red Dress
10-28-2007
BARBWIRE Nevada Corporate Welfare Archive
Propaganda fuels gasoline price fixing
Barbwire 8-14-2005Donate to the cable ratepayer legal defense fund at our PayPal-enabled ReSurge.TV Consumer War Room
Phillips, Kevin; Numbers Racket: Why the economy is worse than we know
Harper's Magazine; May 2008; page 43
Phillips has authored numerous books on history and politics over the past 40 years. His most recent, Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism, was published by Viking on April 15, 2008.NAOMI WOLF: Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps
There are some things common to every state that's made the transition to fascism. Author Naomi Wolf argues that all of them are present in America today.
Alternet 5-20-2007Johnson, Chalmers; REPUBLIC OR EMPIRE? A National Intelligence Estimate on the United States; Harper's magazine; January, 2007. I love it when heavy hitters validate what I've been saying for years in the tiny Sparks Tribune.
Barlett, Donald L. and Steele, James B.; America: What Went Wrong? (1992); America: Who Really Pays the Taxes? (1994); America: Who Stole the Dream? (1996) ; Andrews & McMeel/Universal Press Syndicate.
Review of Alex Carey's Taking the Risk Out of Democracy:
Propaganda in the US and AustraliaThe Orwell Diversion by Alex Carey
Excerpted from the book available below
ORDER Taking the Risk Out of Democracy
Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty
By Alex Carey
Edited by Andrew Lohrey
Foreword by Noam Chomsky
University of Illinois Press
SEE ALSO: Lapham, Lewis H.; Tentacles of Rage: The Republican Propaganda Mill, A Brief History; Harper's Magazine cover article; September, 2004, page 32.
By one conservative estimate, the corporate right has spent about $3 billion over the past three decades manufacturing public opinion to suit big business goals. Lapham's number covered the early 1970's to the present day. Alex Carey noted that by 1948, anti- New Deal corporate propaganda expenditures had already reached $100 million per year, not adjusted for inflation, for advertising alone. (Carey, ibid; page 79)
Adjusted for inflation, that 1948 $100 million becomes $801,659,751.04 in 2005 dollars.
Conservatives Help Wal-Mart, and Vice Versa
As Wal-Mart struggles to rebut growing criticism, it has discovered a reliable ally: conservative research groups.
New York Times 9-8-2006; Free registration may be required.BARBWIRE: Labor Day '94: People vs. corporate con job, 9-4-94
Chilling forecasts from Alex CareyBARBWIRE: The Nevada Republican Party Becomes Communist, 3-30-97
A prescient Plato on the dangers of oligarchyThe sands of time do not cloud the long memories of the sheiks of Araby
Barbwire 9-10-2006
Rinfret, Pierre A.; Peace is Bullish; Look magazine, 5-31-1966
Copyright © 1982-2009 Andrew Barbano
Andrew Barbano is a 40-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org, former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee and serves as second vice-president, political action chair and webmaster of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.
He hosts news and talk Monday through Friday, 2-4:00 p.m., at Barbwire.TV and Reno-Sparks-Washoe Charter digital cable channels 16 and 216, high-definition channel 80-295. Barbwire by Barbano premiered in the Daily Sparks (Nev.) Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988 and has originated in those parts ever since. Tempus fugit.
Site composed and maintained by Deciding Factors, CWA 9413 signatory
Comments and suggestions appreciated. Sign up for news and bulletins